Well, school let out for the kids/teens in my area on the 4th of June. So I'd like to ask everyone what they have planned for the summer. As for me, I don't have much planned. Family and I may be moving. And I might fly up to New York to visit my sister and some other family. But other than that, I guess I'll be spending some time at the beach and stuff.

Not much, I'm in the process of moving back to my mom's place. After that I'll probably be going to some sort of vocational training to be a PCT (Patient Care Technician). My mom said she'd pay for it and it's only two months long, and I'll be able to get around 15+ USD per hour fresh from the program. :3

I will go to my grandma and grandpa in Kiruna (it's in the northen Sweden).Other than that I don't know. Haven't planed anything.Oh why does your school ends so early. My school ends at tursday. (11 june)Just four days left!

Yeah. If I remember correctly, it's mandatory for them to take English in school (at least that's what my Japanese teacher told us before). And according to my Neechan (Yu-Gi-JOU!), prepare for stares. XD She said they always stare at the gaijin (foreigners), as it's not impolite to stare there. :3

Yeah my friend told me about her trip to Japan once. I saw a program on television that they use a lot of robots to entertain the elderly and the such, as well as replace human workers due to a shortage on workers. There are some people there that aren't big on "foreign" workers or something, so the stare, I think I can understand.

I don't think that's why they stare, though. I think it's more at the fact that gaijin are different, rather than them not liking gaijin. It's just generally not impolite to stare. I'm sure they stare at other Japanese people that are different, too. You'd have to ask Yu-Gi-JOU! to make sure, though, as she's in Japan right now. :3

I hope you guys are up for teaching English. That's going to be the only job you're going to be allowed to get, if you're not from Brazil. To renew your visa to stay longer, you need someone to sign off on it, so even if you have a job, your employer might not want to sign off on you having an extended visa, and back to the States you go. There are cases of exPats staying here for the rest of their lives, but this is extremely rare. My favorite worker in the office was recently sent back to Australia, simply because she was here for 7 years and they deemed it time for her to leave.

To give an idea of how many visas are given out yearly, only about 3% of the population currently in Japan are foreign. Of this, I fall into the .5%, the "not tourist/extended stay/live here" list. If I had any real hopes of staying any longer than I am, I would have to get married to a Japanese person.

You can NEVER become a Japanese citizen. Ever. Even if you marry a Japanese person, you will never ever be a citizen. You will always be second class, and you will be treated as such. There are certain places that WILL tell you 外国人はちょっと。。。and then just not let you in wherever it was you were trying to go, or give you any service at all. People will stare at you no matter where you go, except maybe Tokyo. That's the only place I've been to that I haven't gotten intense stares. Probably because they're so used to gaijin at this point. HOWEVER, the rest of Japan is NOT like this, and even some people in Tokyo will still stare at the foreigners.

And while English is mandatory to take, not many people actually speak it. You HAVE to know at least your basic Japanese to get around. I came here knowing enough to get myself where I needed to go, but it's frustrating when you can't read signs, thanks to kanji, or know enough to understand what it does say, even after you ask what the kanji means. I don't understand the mentality of "I don't have to learn Japanese to go to Japan."

Also, please, for the love of god, don't think anime is that big of a thing here in Japan. While it is its place of origin, it's still exactly what it is in America. Anime is a SUB CULTURE. Not everyone likes it, and some people will still find you weird/geeky/childish for liking it.

... I'm free for more questions, if you guys have any. :3

EDIT: And yeah, it's just because you're different. There is still some risidual hatred, as is made known by the nationalist van that drives in front of my apartment every now and then, but mostly it's "WHOA YOUR SKIN IS WHITE" type of stare.

Yay for Neechan's clarification. Most of this I knew, but I didn't know statistics. o.o And I know if you ever do go to Japan, NEVER, EVER call yourself an otaku of anything. Otakus are frowned upon, much like our Star Wars geeks and such. When the Japanese exchange students came to my high school in... Freshman year (? Maybe junior... I forget), they did a presentation on it for us. They even showed most otaku's God-awful fashion sense. Think an Asian Steve Urkel, but... Not exactly. Someone in our class even had one of those shirts from Suncoast that said "OTAKU" on the front, and the Japanese kids laughed. XP

That's dying out, actually. My Japanese friends and I joke about otaku-ness. I still flail about and claim to not be one, though, but because it's known that I like anime and play card games, I pretty much am already branded as an otaku.